Just because he's spineless doesn’t mean he can’t be a good father. Octodad tries to support his family while keeping up the guise of being a human.(Octodad screen shot)

Imagine you’re a man just trying to live a normal life, being supportive of your wife, playing games with your children, and doing household chores. You love your family, but you’re harboring a secret that you can’t let them find out — a secret that, if discovered, could bring your whole idyllic life crashing down.

Now, imagine that secret is that you’re an octopus.

The titular character of this video game scenario, Octodad, is a sea creature trying to live life as a human, attempting circumvent any suspicions about his identity with his human family, despite the fact that he is basically a yellow octopus in a suit, and talks only in gurgles.

Challenges in the game usually come down to having Octodad do simple things, such as mowing the lawn or buying groceries, but such tasks suddenly become struggles when you have to do them without the help of a spine. Even worse, Octodad is forced to go out into public and must balance his family life without revealing himself to be an aquatic creature. On top of all that, he has to contend with a deranged sushi chef pursuing him relentlessly, trying to unmask him for the mollusk he is.

Advertisement

To create the effect of controlling a sentient cephalopod, Octodad developer Young Horses has made the controls purposefully awkward. You can control Octodad with either a keyboard and mouse or with a game controller, but either way, fine-tuned motor skills are out of the question. Two buttons each control one of Octodad’s “legs” and another controls the suction cups on his “hands.” When you go to pick up a gallon of milk, expect to knock everything else off the table in the process. Something like walking up a downward-moving escalator would be an annoyance for a human; for Octodad it’s a herculean effort. It creates some side-splittingly silly situations, but slip up too many times and it’s game over.

While the game play is amusing, a premise this silly lives or dies on its writing. Luckily, the script here is hilarious, from Octodad’s attempts to explain to his human children where babies come from, to aquarium workers complaining about having to explain how fish breathe. Even though the story is comedy foremost, it also touches on some weirdly poignant moments between Octodad and his family, with a message about being accepted for the person you are on the inside.

For casual gamers the otherwise family-friendly atmosphere may be overshadowed by the intentional difficulty in controlling Octodad. The final moments of the game require deft maneuvering of your wiggly limbs, and there are a few stealth sections thrown in where one false step means failure. Expect to restart from a checkpoint a lot.

Compounding that are frame rate issues. Particularly busy sections of the game slowed my PC to a crawl, even with the graphics and physics settings turned down. While none of the graphics is spectacular, the sheer number of moving parts on screen made playing the game look more like a slideshow. I’m looking forward to seeing if the PlayStation 4 version of the game, coming out in March, irons out these technical issues for console gamers.

Despite of these drawbacks, the game doesn’t overstay its welcome. My first playthrough of the story clocked in at barely over two hours. Gameplay is extended by free downloadable bonus levels, some of which are harder than the main game. It’s for the best, because the idea of awkwardly doing everyday tasks probably couldn’t support a 20-hour game.

It’s hard to think of Octodad: Dadliest Catch as anything but a fun novelty. It’s a good way to spend an afternoon or even play with friends. The game supports local multiplayer, where up to four players can each control one or two of Octodad’s tentacles, but there are no plans to include online play. It’s available for the PC through Steam, but it might be best to wait for this one to come out on Playstation 4 before taking the plunge.

Developer Young Horses provided a review code for the purposes of this article.